1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a prediction analysis apparatus having the function of presenting a suggestion to change a prediction result into a desired result when predicting unknown data based on accumulated known data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, with remarkable progress of computers and Internet, it has become possible to easily obtain a large volume of information of various types even from a remote source. In this connection, a high density and low price storage device can easily store the obtained information.
For example, in a POS (point of sale) system in the distribution business, the sales information from all branches in the world can be collected and stored in the computer of the head office, and is accumulated as the information about transaction items with time stamps. In addition, a large volume of information is accumulated in various fields such as the manufacturing industry storing the conditions of various production devices with yield data of produced goods, the financial business storing the data of the use of personal credit cards, the insurance business storing personal data and use data of policyholders, etc.
Under the situation, there is much demand for a method of automatically and efficiently extracting valuable information such as the relation of cause and effect, the rules, etc. obtained from the large volume of accumulated data, and making the best of the information in each business.
Conventionally, a result of unknown data has been predicted based on the accumulated known data through a statistic process, AI (artificial intelligence), a neural network, etc.
However, for practical use, it is requested not only to simply predict unknown data, but also to present an instruction as to what to do next based on the prediction result.
For example, if it is predicted that produced goods will be defective from the condition data (production condition) of various production devices in the manufacturing industry, it is important to check how the condition data should be changed to improve the goods to be produced. In the insurance business, it is important to check a possible risk according to the information about a policyholder and his or her status of use. For example, it is important to obtain the condition of a most suspicious person who can be predicted to be safe.
However, the conventional prediction apparatus has not presented a user with the information for suggestion as to how unknown data should be amended to change the obtained information, that is, the prediction result into a desired result. The conventional apparatus only predicts the level of sensitivity to the result of an attribute based on a sensitivity analysis. Thus, a demand for an apparatus capable of presenting the above mentioned information has grown.